I have wanted to write for as long as I can remember and I have been saying I want to start a blog for almost as long. I am lucky that I now get to do it for a living and have incorporated writing into my career pretty much from the get-go, regardless of job title. But writing about the business world and the fast-paced landscape that’s digital marketing isn’t quite the same as putting pen to paper about the things that set your heart and mind on fire.
Why am I only just starting? Well, picking a niche has felt impossible. Or whittling down the subject matter to only one area felt suffocating. I love to travel, so that felt like the natural area to focus on. But is that all I want to write about? During covid, I barely left my house for six months and didn’t get on a plane for three years, rendering a travel blog effectively dead in the water. I am fairly interested in psychology, having studied it at university, and I’m generally fascinated by the human mind. Maybe a blog on my journey into counselling would be a good angle. That, of course, would require me actually committing to counselling – so that’s out of the window. Perhaps I could write more column-style pieces, detailing my transition into being a ‘pet mum’ or my perpetual anxiety.
In short, the options felt both overwhelming and limiting in one. I don’t want to create a box for myself doing something I am supposed to love. I don’t want to condemn myself to a small life online when that’s the very thing this blog is meant to remedy. I still don’t have an answer or any real focus, I just want to write about whatever pops into my mind and see where the thread of an idea can take me.
So, here we go. Welcome to my blog ‘The Orange’, inspired by Wendy Cope’s poem about finding joy in the small things. I want to celebrate life and write about the things that niggle in my mind, demanding me to scribble something…anything.
See you on the other side,
LJ x
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